Friday, February 23, 2007

Tonight is the Night - The Creationists are Coming

In my town tonight, a man from the Institute for Creation Research and Bible Skeptics is doing a lecture called The Evolution Delusion. I'll be attending for a lark and to maybe ask a question or two during the Q&A - and I'll have a tape recorder so I can transcribe the happenings in a post tomorrow. Should be fun.

Dr Laurence Moran of Sandwalk is coming as well. Good times on a Friday with a creationist confrontation! Just as a sidenote, on their flyer it asks specifically for "skeptics" to show up and bring their questions. It even says this wonderfully silly paragraph:

If there were ANY chance that you could be wrong - and that a literal hell does exist - isn't that too great a gamble for eternity? Shouldn't you be 100% certain?

Yeah, so aside from the grammatical point that these folks believe that this "hell" place actually exists, which would make it a proper noun and as such should be capitalized, the paragraph is again the tired old Pascal's Wager bit that has been totallypickedapart too many times to get into.

Using the Wager as a draw for the general population in their flyer seems to indicate they are expecting fairly green "skeptics" to show up, if any at all. We'll see if they're at all prepared.

3 Barbaric Yawps:

I wish I could join you, as it seems like an educational experience =P.

Though rationally it should be like shooting fish in a barrel, they'll probably Gish gallop as an answer to whatever questions you ask then move on without letting you respond. Good luck. Should be fun anyway.

Things I Doubt: Ray Comfort & Kirk Cameron's ability to put together a decent argument...or a decent sandwich, for that matter; Oprah Winfrey's judgment about anything; Jenny McCarthy's anatomical conformity, by which I mean, I think she has neither a brain nor a heart; Jim Carrey's status as a Canadian - am I allowed to unilaterally decline that?; believers in acupuncture and their ability to accept that it is a fantasy; and the justness of a world where I am not rich for my truly amazing humor but Reality TV "stars" continue to rake in the cash.